Robert Reich, on why this “deal” is a colossal failure for President Obama and the Democrats.
Anyone who characterizes the deal between the President, Democratic, and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics.
In a CNN poll of American adults released Friday, the median guess on what percentage of the federal budget goes to public broadcasting was 5%. With a $3.55 trillion budget last year, that would put funding for the CBP at approximately $178 billion.
In reality though, that’s not even close.
The CPB received about $420 million last year from the federal government, making it roughly one one-hundredth of one percent, of the overall budget.
You mean to tell me that a whole bunch of Americans base their opinions on a big rotten fetid pile of shit? Really?
This is hardly surprising. Ask any American how much he thinks his government spends on foreign aid. And prepare to listen to a nice healthy harangue about how goddamn much we spend on those fuckers and how it’s just horrible that we give all our munny away.
The truth about the federal budget is that there is no room to cut. The only area of the federal budget that might be bloated enough to make a difference is the Pentagon, and you know damn skippy that nobody is touching that money.
Anyone who says that the United States is going to cut its way out of its budget crisis is either lying to you or assumes you are a booger-eating moron.
The problem is revenue. Not spending. Any other explanation offered you is just pandering to your seemingly American instinct to base your opinions on poo.
Radio B.O.N.K. is undergoing some maintenance as the Zappadan holiday continues. Here is the latest promo we’ve cut, thanks to our good friends at AT&T Research:
In this post, I’m going to share with you the furthest out my conspiratorial mind goes.
It’s not that far. I don’t think. It’s complete speculation, something I made up all on my own. But I wonder if it’s not the conpiracy we ought to be fussing over.
There is news today in the stem cell research arena. Scientists have found a way to create the things without using embryos. So now, we can just indefinitely freeze our embryos, just like God intended.
Here’s where my conspiracy theory comes in.
I think that medical science is on the verge of making it possible for human beings to live a lot longer.
And I think the rich and powerful are fighting tooth and nail to accumulate as much wealth and power as they possibly can in anticipation of that development.
It’s why they want to freeze out democratization of this country’s health care delivery system. They do not want this new virtual immortality to be available to everyone. Because if they can keep it to themselves, they truly will see deliverance of the new feudal system they’ve all been gooshing in thier pants about. And, because they are well aware that virtual immortality available massively would drastically upend the world’s economics.
Too much? Too crazy?
Seems pretty reasonable stacked next to “death panels” and “Obama is a (fill-in-the-blank).”
Well, don’t we look nice?
The gory details: Wanted to move this mess back to Dreamhost. Was successful at exporting and importing the entries, though I really need to work on my backup skills for this particular project. Had settled down with the Pundit theme and was trying to make it easier on the eyes. Was not successful. Started trying on other new themes. Found this one. It was AWESOME.
The Vigilance theme has a lot of cool stuff built in. Like the sidebar and banner images? Built in, and they can be randomized, too. It’s much easier on the eyes. So, let’s try this a while.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that this week brought the America’s Future Now! conference to Washington, D.C., June 7 – 9 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Every year I swear I’m going to go print up a bunch of business cards with this URL on it and take them to this conference and attend, and every year, I don’t. But, we can take a look at some of the news that’s come out of this meeting of progressive minds.
Dana Milbank reports somewhat breathlessly that, apparently, progressives are angry enough with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to heckle her. Albeit, the heckling sounds like it was pretty damned weird:
Just three minutes into her speech—right after she gave the triumphant news that “Change is here!”—two men stood up and spread out a large pink banner in front of the podium demanding “Stop Funding Israel Terror.”
At that moment, a wheelchair-bound woman named Carrie James began to scream from her table about 30 feet away: “I am not going to a nursing home!” At that cue, about 15 people in the crowd—who, like James, wore orange T-shirts demanding “Community Choice Act Now”—unfurled bedsheet banners and struck up a chant: “Our homes, not nursing homes!”
Look, I’ve had a chip on my shoulder regarding Madam Speaker since impeachment was yanked off the table in aught-six. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.
Milbank paints this as a demonstration of the “unraveling” of the progressive movement somehow. But that’s a rather myopic view. The truth is that, from the “left” in America, a major dynamic we’re faced with in the Obama era is that of party politics versus movement politics, with Pelosi representing the former and staunch progressives understanding more and more that the latter is the only refuge they’ve left. The sobering truth is that the Democratic Party can only take a progressive agenda so far on its own, and that the party as a whole becomes less and less concerned with We the People each year. Look for that trend to worsen dramatically in the next decade as we enter the post-Citizens United decision era.
But it’s not just Pelosi drawing the ire of progressives. These folks are plenty mad at President Obama, too. Which I think is understandable to some extent, though I have to continue to query them as to what in the living hell they expected.
News flash, kids. “Change” and “hope” were terrific marketing bytes for Obama, and they weren’t lies considering the dread and horror foisted upon the American people by the Bush administration. But this guy is not a liberal; he is not a progressive, and he did not run as either one of those things. He did not run on ending our never-ending war. He did not run on all-out universal health care. He did run promising to do something about DADT, but he flat out came out and told Rick Warren that he’s not in support of marriage rights for everybody. We were unable to nominate Dennis Kucinich, the most progressive of the bunch, and we did not nominate John Edwards, who talked a lot more like a progressive than most of them, and thank goodness for that. We elected a moderate. And he is governing moderately. So why are you surprised and would you be happier with a President McCain?
Again, for those of us interested in moving the envelope forward in a dramatic fashion, party politics can only go so far for us. That is the unfortunate reality of American politics. Party politics is ruled by money and is not established in such a way that third-party options can make even a dent. Movement politics may offer a more effective tool for change, but then, it brings out the nut-bars who for some reason think it’s a good idea to heckle the Speaker of the House.
I mean, what do you reckon the chances are that she’ll ever come back to your stupid conference again?
Anyway. Look, kids. That’s politics. Politics is sometimes you, a person, playing tug-of-war with a building. The point though is to keep tugging anyway. Ya know?
As the Republican Party works itself into a lather over the Obama administration’s offer of a job to Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn) in exchange for him not entering the Pennsylvania Senate primary, seasoned political observers, historians, and lawyers are responding with veritable yawns.
American presidential history is littered with quid pro quos, implicit and explicit secret job offers, and backroom deals, so much so that the Sestak offer may be more the norm than the exception to it.
…to learn that Haliburton was involved with the oil rig and also to learn that it’s not a union job?
…there must be a lot of folks reading us here at KIAV and its imaginary think-tank, the Serious Poo-Poo Institute of Technology…